


eurydice

by hydrochloric



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, reset theory, spoilers for seven's real name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrochloric/pseuds/hydrochloric
Summary: forever and a day with the boy that you love(perhaps it wasn't meant to be.)





	

You're caught in-between sleep and sunny morning when the boy that you love buries himself in your hair, wraps his arms impossibly tight around your ribs. He speaks in a hush, shaky and weak and so close that you should be able to understand him, but you don't.

"Saeyoung," you say, a tired routine. With eyes half-open, you fumble to untangle him from you. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Ah," he says, in a broken tone you wish weren't so familiar, and he stills under your hand like a toy winding down. "I'm sorry."

But you take his hand before he can retreat into himself. He always tries, because it's all he knows, but you don't let him. You take his hand and lead him back to you, your thumb rubbing circles around his knuckles; and you say, "I'm not mad at you. I needed some space – to be able to breathe, that's all. Are you okay?"

Saeyoung nods and smiles like he's forgotten how to, his lips pressed together so tight you see tremors. Then he's quiet. You watch him be quiet from under the blanket, the boy that you love, dark circles and all. There's sun coming in through the blinds; it ripples over the two of you and onto the sheets, and in the shift of day, a stream of light folds across the pillows over Saeyoung's eye. It's amber and honey, a little wet.

You reach out to pat at the corners of his eyes, saying with a sigh, "You're so pretty."

His lashes brush against the tips of your fingers, the second time slower than the first, and it reminds you of the way he kisses you.

And even though your hair is tangled and your face is covered in pillow marks, he tells you, "You're prettier. You're so pretty when you're barely awake, you know that?" And you place a kiss on his lips even though it's more like the crook of his mouth because your head is heavy.

Saeyoung traps your face with his hands before you can pull away, squishes your cheeks. Kisses you right this time. Steady and sweet and almost chaste.

"Is that why you crushed me?" you say, curling into his throat. "So I could wake up and be pretty again?"

"No! That would imply that you weren't pretty when you were asleep. Actually, you were so beautiful I had to make sure you were real," says Saeyoung.

"Now I've leveled up to beautiful. Yoosung will be so proud of me."

He laughs from somewhere deep in his chest, the vibrations fuzzy against your skin. "You've always been beautiful. I changed my mind because pretty isn't strong enough to describe you. You're beautiful, especially when your face gets red like that, and especially when you get embarrassed, but you're always beautiful."

"Stop," you mumble. "Shut up. You're beautiful too, and I mean it." When you get like this you're not very good with words, so you jump out from Saeyoung's arms before he can prod on the _how_ s or _why_ s and stumble onto the floor. You can't quite meet his eyes, so you fix your gaze upon his hands, frozen in place, exactly where your body was. "As an apology for making you cry before the day's even started, I'll serve you breakfast... in bed."

"I'm not that hungry, though," says Saeyoung, immediately. There's a look on his face that you can't figure out, and it's strange, because he loves it when you cook for him and more importantly, when you give him opportunities to make jokes about doing things in bed.

But you feel bad. Plus, "I know you haven't had anything to eat since Zen stopped by yesterday," you say, as you head to the door. "That's basically forever ago, right? Unless you snuck out of bed for a snack. Anyway, I'm hungry and I want food."

"Come back. I'd rather have you here with me."

"Don't worry, I'll be back with all your favorites faster than you can say – "

"Please."

He calls your name, and his voice cracks; you think that must be the sound of your heart caving in. "I'm sorry," you say, feeling stupid; feeling sick and sad and truly, truly sorry; and you're all over him at once.

There's a part of Saeyoung that hurts and won't ever stop hurting. There's a part of him that feels too much, as you do now, but all the time; and a part that feels not enough. There's a part of Saeyoung that is small and scared and incapable of bearing the weight of all this feeling – a part that is trying to do it anyway – and when it breaks down it helps, he says, if someone is there to help him hold himself together.

So it's not until long after he's stopped trembling that you let go of him, and only to stretch your arms into a sunbeam, disrupt the dust floating upwards. Everything of you smells like him, and the walls are so much brighter now. You smooth over the hair at the nape of his neck – that's _are you all right_ – and he sniffs, a little, and then he cries, a little, and then he's saying, "Sorry. Sorry. Today's just not my day, I guess. I'm sorry. It's not that I don't like your cooking, because I do. It's the best in this universe. But I felt like something bad was going to happen if you left."

You kiss him on the brow, linger there. That's _I'm sorry too_. "It's okay. I should have listened to you the first time."

"Thank you – for staying. I love you. You know I love you, right?"

"How could I not?" you say, a smile spreading across your face, and you didn't know you could feel this much for someone but you do. "I love you, too."

"It makes me so happy to hear that. I wish you would, every time."

There's that strange look again.

You want to say, _now that I know, I will. I'll tell you love you, every time_. But it doesn't feel right, doesn't feel like the answer. It doesn't come out right either; the end of it overwhelms the rest and what you wind up saying is,

"Every time. What does that mean?"

Saeyoung frowns the way he does when his code isn't compiling correctly, or when his inventions aren't working as designed. He frowns as if he's searching for the root of an error. "It's hard to explain."

"I can wait. We have plenty of time. We have all the time in the world."

He doesn't say anything. He stares at you – just stares at you, hard and intense, and you're starting to worry that you've said something wrong. But then he laughs; and then he says, "In bed." He laughs again and doesn't stop this time.

You shove your pillow over his head. "You're the worst."

"In bed," says Saeyoung, loudly. "Wait. Oh no – "

"This is what you get for not being funny."

Saeyoung rolls out from under your pillow, drapes the blanket over the two of you, clings onto you like a koala on a tree. "I might not be funny, and I might be the worst – "

"In bed."

"I might be the worst," he continues, "but even so, I'm pretty to you, right? And you love me."

"Hm," you say, inspecting his face, wide-eyed and expectant, pretending to think about it. "I guess you're still pretty."

"Do you still love me?"

"That's a given. It's like asking if Jumin and Zen are still fighting, or if Jaehee is still C&R's best employee."

"Can I ask you to do something for me, then?" says Saeyoung, softly, softer than the light soaking in through the blanket.

"Yes, but you haven't answered my question yet. I asked first."

Saeyoung exhales, long and drawn out so it sounds like a sigh, a shudder. "I want to tell you but I don't know what it is, either. It's like... do you remember when me and Yoosung were watching Hell Note?"

"I think," you say, a little confused by the change in topic but trying your best to keep up. "You'd get in your pajamas at three in the afternoon and leave popcorn everywhere. You ate your chips really dramatically for a month. And… Yoosung ignored Zen in chat for a week after he spoiled K's death for you, right? He was talking about how depressing it was to act it out in the musical."

"Yeah. Yoosung was really mad about it. I was, too. Even though the show was the same as it was before, I couldn't enjoy it because I knew what was coming. All I could think about was – is this when it happens?" He pulls you closer, but there's a distance in his voice. "It's a little like that, I think. Always wondering. Always hoping it ends differently."

The sun hangs low on his face, burning as things do before they extinguish, and the air is thick; forms clouds inside your head. You can't find words for him, not to soothe this nameless affliction. A haunting. Dreamlike, how it slows down the seconds as it's spoken of. What's second best, you decide, is to ask: "What can I do for you?"

And the boy that you love, who could be so shy, still, about what he really wanted; who could consume all the room in your heart when he smiled at you like that – he says, "Stay here with me, like this."

"Okay," you say; and as you do he moves to close the gap between the two of you; and as he does the light falls across his eyes again.

A flush, a flame. Flickering on his eyelids, then his eyes: amber and gold, a little wet.

For a moment that goes on too long he looks at you, bright and blinded, and he's beautiful. He's beautiful. He's beautiful. He aches in you, and the feeling rises up like heat until there's nothing left for him to seep into. You lose yourself in him – the bends and bows of him, the way he fills the room, his sad eyes. And if the tears didn't swell, didn't sway, it would have felt like forever.

But the bell rings. Saeyoung blinks, three times, and for each blink there's a knock at the door, somewhere far removed from this place.

"Were we expecting someone today?" you mumble into his chest.

"I don't know," he says. The knocking doesn't stop. It only gets louder, sharp and out of sync with Saeyoung's heartbeat thumping against your ear. The sound of the two together is like the tick of a clock breaking down. _Thud, thump, thud, thump_.

"Whoever it is, they're persistent." Saeyoung laughs as you say that, and there's something harsh and resigned about it that makes you latch onto him when he moves to get up. "I didn't mean it like that. They can wait. Maybe they'll think we're not home and go away."

"I don't think they will, though. Besides… it could be something important."

You reach up to him and press your lips to his, clumsy. "They could have picked a better time, at least."

Another laugh, ringing clear; and he kisses you back. It's a real kiss this time. Slow and sweet and so tender.

"You know," he says, and envelops you in his arms. "If I love you enough, no matter what happens, I'll be able to find you."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," you tell him. You fumble to loosen his grip, freeing your arms so you can hug him back.

Saeyoung is quiet for a moment, is just a shaky breath in the air. _Please_ , he wants to say. _If you mean it, then don't._ But he's no good at being honest so instead he says, "I know. Keep the bed warm. I'll be back soon."

And he crosses the beam of light cast across the room by the setting sun, hesitating at the door. If this is a dream, he thinks; and he's had too many like it before. He's lived these ends too many times, all of them so far behind him it's hard to tell what was and wasn't real. If any were. But if this is a dream –

the door wouldn't open, as it does now, stretching out like a shadow. He wouldn't be walking down the hallway, hazy and Stygian, longer than it could ever be, a universe away from his love.

And the sound of knocking wouldn't grow softer with every step, taunting him without remorse up to the final turn and reveal of empty space – what he already knew; a visit from fate come to force his hand.

If this is a dream, Saeyoung thinks. He closes his eyes and holds his breath and listens for footsteps. Laughter. Your voice, calling out his name.

There's nothing for the longest time – and then faintly, he hears the murmur of his phone down the hall, a plaintive poltergeist he's left behind.

He looks back without meaning to, but his heart is caged inside an empty house.


End file.
